


Laying Claim

by Listless_Songbird



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Harassment, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, M/M, Panic Attacks, Peter Lukas is a Bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-05-28 05:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19387066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Listless_Songbird/pseuds/Listless_Songbird
Summary: Jon has an encounter with Peter that shakes him badly. Martin helps him put himself back together





	1. Chapter 1

Jon scrubbed at his face as he opened the door leading out from the archives. There was something he needed checked from artifact storage and he desperately needed a break so he decided to go look into it himself. However as he stepped through the door, he immediately regretted his decision. A chill began to cling to his skin and his breath seemed to come out in echoes. Jon started to turn around, ready to just go back to the archives and ignore everything. But when he did all he could see behind him was a long stretch of hallway where whatever end it might have had was being rapidly obscured by thick white fog.

Shoulders slumping he slowly turned back around and spent a few very cathartic moments cursing out everything to do with the institute and the entities and  _ specifically  _ the Lukas’s. He heard Peter clear his throat and finally looked up at the other man.

“I have work I need to be doing.” At this Peter just nodded and simply replied, 

“Im sure you do.” Before lapsing into an expectant silence. Jon let out a rough breath and flatly asked

“Why are you here.” And at that Peter’s face lit up.

“Well you see, I’ve actually been rather busy as of late. What with running the institute and managing a few of my other side projects that have up until now been on the back burner. So I only just realized I hadn’t actually come to ask you how you’ve been fairing after your little coma vacation. I had figured that someone else would have asked you by now and I could content myself with second hand accounts so as to not  _ interfere  _ too much. But imagine my surprise when I realized that they hadn’t. Which doesn’t really seem like a healthy level friendship or even companionship to have with your assistants, but ah- ive gone off on a tangent.” Jon grit his teeth against the way Peter’s words dug into him like claws, the feeling of cold isolation beginning to creep down his limbs. 

“Yes. Yes im aware im being kept at a distance from literally everyone I could talk to about these matters, and im sure im a veritable buffet for you and your god.  _ What do you want? _ ” Jon let all the power that had been slowly pushing against the back of his mind all day pour out into question in a rush. Jon felt the question catch and start to  _ pull– _ and then Peter was speaking.

“Frankly I was wondering what in the world Martin sees in you. You wouldn’t  _ believe _ the lengths he’ll go to in order to keep you sa–” Peter abruptly cut himself off and his smile grew cold and sharp as Jon felt the compulsion snap and fizzle out in the air between them.

The fog suddenly seemed to tighten around him, seeping into his clothes and pressing itself under his skin muffling all feeling. All of a sudden Jon couldn’t feel anything, not his clothes not the ground under his feet, all of it muffled by this cavernous, empty,  _ nothing _ that was suddenly between him and the rest of the world. 

When Jon could focus again Peter was standing directly in front of him. Any friendliness had vanished from his expression leaving behind only cold fascination. Jon wanted to move, to run, to do anything, but he couldn’t feel his limbs. He couldn’t even speak, he was stuck, floating inside his own skin. All he could do was stand there and listen as Peter began to speak again.

“Well then. Elias  _ did _ say you were promising, but I honestly thought he was deluding himself. After all, I have been keeping an eye on you. Not your sort of eye course, just plain observational abilities. But anyways, you’ve truly done nothing that would hint at any actual power that I could see. You even go out of your way to avoid asking questions down in your den of an archive. Which I thought just showed how far you had to go.” Peter tilted his head to the side and seemed to be focusing on something just past Jon’s head. Pressure built up under his skin again and it was like the void was crushing him until he couldn’t even breathe anymore. He knew suddenly, that if he were to die here no-one would care enough to look for him. 

“Oh. Oh that’s it. It’s not that you can’t use them its that you actually try not to use your powers on your assistants! Oh that’s fascinating. Have they noticed? No they haven’t, have they? You’re doing all this work to protect them, and they still just  _ despise  _ you.” By the time he had finished speaking, Peter was smiling fully again. His words sunk into Jon like fish hooks pulling memory after memory of the others going out of their way to avoid him. The memories quickly began to overwhelm him and he still didn’t feel like he could breathe.

Peter reached out and put a hand on Jon’s shoulder and if he could have moved he would have fallen over. Peter’s hand burned through the fog and void inside of him and it  _ hurt _ but it was the only thing that Jon could feel so he mentally clung to that weight to stop himself from fading away, even as he hated himself for doing so. Peter had begun to speak again and Jon tried pulled his attention back into focus.

“No wonder  _ loneliness  _ seems to come off you like waves. You truly do have no one.” Peter’s other hand came up to slightly cup his jaw, and once again to touch seemed to burn into Jon’s skin. When Peter spoke again his voice was softer,

“If this place hadn’t already sunk down right into your bones with its claim I might have been tempted to keep you.” His hand moved to grasp Jon’s chin and he tilted his head to the side. His other coming up to run over the worm scars on his face and neck that had been left by the Prentiss attack. 

“You really should just let the Eye erase the Corruption’s claim on you and heal them. They’re quite off-putting. I do wonder why you’ve kept these so proudly on display. Is there a conflict of loyalty stopping you perhaps?” Peter finally let go and took a step back lightly patting Jon on the cheek as he went. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Elias. And anyways that does seem to be a running theme around here so I shouldn’t be surprised.” 

With that final parting Peter turned around and walked off, quickly disappearing into the fog. The fog began to slowly dissipate after Peter had vanished, slowly revealing the institute corridors once again. Jon slumped against the closest wall heavily and slid down till he was seated on the floor. He could still feel the void under his skin blocking out everything, but it was beginning to fade slightly.

He really should go. Somewhere, he had been going to artifact storage right? He should keep going there then. Or maybe just go back to the archives, sit in his office and try to get himself back under control. Either one he should do  _ something  _ besides sitting on the floor where anyone could come across him. 

He really should move. 

Jon let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Jon felt his ears start to ring and his skin begin to prickle and made a beeline for the closest supply closet.  _ This _ was why he rarely left the archives anymore. This was why he avoided any lonely statements he could, pushing them off to one of his assistants. This was why he avoided even  _ thinking _ about Lukas these days. Because when he did this happened. 

He understood why, he wasn’t completely stupid, he was intimately aware of how triggers and flashbacks work. What he didn’t understand was why  _ this _ was what shaking him. Even being kidnapped and almost made to walk to his death hadn’t managed to leave quite as much of a mark as Peter bloody Lukas managed with a single conversation.

Except it wasn’t just that single conversation was it. He would have been  _ lucky  _ if that had been the only time he had interacted with the man. But no, it seemed Peter had been going out of his way to run into Jon every time he left the archives. They never spoke again but the fog would roll in so quickly it would steal Jon’s breath from his lips and the warmth from his limbs. 

He knew better than to stop moving by now, and turning back the way he came only meant running into the smirking bastard. So he would push on. Peter usually let him, brushing past too close, jostling Jon to the side leaving his skin  _ burning  _ from the touch of it and aching with the knowledge that that had been the first body contact he had had in days. 

Other times the fog would wrap around him completely and he would lose connection to himself. That was when Peter pushed his way into his personal space and grabbed his chin turning it to the side and wordlessly smirking as Jon flinched away from the gentle touches to the scars on his throat. Then with a pat on the cheek he was gone. 

Jon had tried compelling, him he had tried to truly Look at Peter to Know him but nothing had worked. So he retreated down into the archives and only left when absolutely necessary. 

Jon crouched in the back of the closet running a hand through his hair and trying to remind himself that Peter was gone for the next few months, he was needed elsewhere, he said. And Jon was close enough to the Eye by then that he could feel the truth behind the words. 

Maybe that's why it felt like this panic attack was building up to a full breakdown. Even in the archives there was always the possibility that Peter might decide to stop letting him have that space, or Daisy might come in for company, or Basira might need him for something. Jon choked out a laugh he was never fully  _ alone  _ before now. He had always needed to be on guard. 

But as he sat huddled in the corner of this dusty closet there was no one looking for him. He was alone, and that was safer than the alternative. Always had been for him, so setting this loneliness that was so very different from Peter’s around him like a shield, Jon allowed himself to break down. 

* * *

Martin breathed a sigh of relief when he felt Peter’s presence finally leave the Institute. He might have been grooming him to stop the end of the world and join him and his god, but he was just downright creepy sometimes. He had gotten better at acting like a reasonable person around him the last few weeks though so that had been a refreshing change. 

Martin turned his attention back to the  _ mounds  _ of paperwork he had to do and groaned. This wasn’t his problem. Literally, most of this was Peter’s problem that he was avoiding and foisting off on Martin because he’s an avoidant  _ dick _ . Martin glared at the piles as if that would cause them to magically shrink before he decides that they can wait a bit longer. 

Martin leave Elias’s office? No not really anymore, Peter’s office? Also no. His office and starts to wander through the Institute. He might as well do something productive while he’s procrastinating and it’s always good to double check that Peter hadn’t disappeared anyone new. Especially because he had been rather cheery as of late. Everything seemed to be just fine until he walked into one of the corridors near the stairs to the archives and was nearly bowled over by a wave of loneliness so strong even he could feel it. 

Fearing the worst, even if he wasn’t sure what the worst would actually be Martin quickly made his way to the epicenter of this roiling mass and found the right door. It was the door to a closet and Martin very carefully inched it open, cautious of hitting anyone on the other side. His eyes adjusted to the dark and he gasped.

“Jon? Jon are you okay? I mean- obviously you aren’t but just- What happened? Is it- was it Peter?” Jon flinches back so hard he slams his head into the shelf behind him when Martin speaks up and his eyes open with a wild panic behind them. 

At the mention of Peter’s name Jon seemed to go completely still. He didn’t move a muscle, just stared blankly in Martin’s direction, not even seemingly to breathe. 

The air around them was still practically dripping with loneliness and Martin gathered up the little influence over it he had and pushed it to the side. That seemed to break Jon out of his trance but now he was shaking, pressed even tighter into himself and hyperventilating. Martin instinctively reached out before catching himself and lowering his hand before it could make contact. Jon hated people invading his personal bubble and this would be  _ a really bad time to ignore that.  _

“Jon can you hear me? Its Martin, look can you breathe for me? Can you match my breathing?” Martin started breathing deeply and heavily hoping that Jon would follow. Jon did eventually and Martin mentally sighed in relief, keeping his breathing steady and all his movements slow and obvious. 

When Jon slowly began to uncurl Martin had to stop himself from reaching out again to pull him into a hug. He was ragged and looked utterly exhausted. After a few minutes of silence between the two Martin spoke up again. 

“What happened Jon?” And then realizing he might be overstepping he backpedalled “Not that you have to tell me or anything- I know we haven’t talked in a while and wouldn’t want to assume- but I think it might help?”

Jon breathed out something half between a laugh and a sob. 

“I believe your boss, has chosen me as his newest amusement. It is not what you would call a  _ pleasant  _ experience.” Things started to fit into place in Martin’s head and he winced. 

“Oh god im so sorry. I didn’t think- Do you want me to leave? I can leave, I know that the Lonely pour off me. I’ll just-“ Jon’s hand shot out and tangled in the sleeve of Martin’s jumper. 

“Don’t-“ His voice cracked and something within Martin broke a bit at the sound. “Don’t leave.” Jon seemed to be looking everywhere but Martin as he said this and his hand shook slightly where he grasped the fabric. 

Martin carefully moved closer, telegraphing his movements clearly as he reached out a hand to wrap around Jon’s shoulders. A moment after the weight of his arm settled firmly onto Jon’s shoulders Jon began to shake again and in a flurry of movement suddenly tucked himself into Martin’s lap with is face pressed to where his shoulder met his neck still not letting go of the handful of jumper he had first grabbed. 

Martin let out a soft “Oh” before wrapping his arms around Jon as tight has he could, moving his freehand up to gently stroke Jon’s hair. 

Damn Peter and damn the Lonely. There had to be a way to stop the Extinction that didn’t involve Peter and his mind games and manipulation. He was going to find it and then he was never leaving Jon’s side again. 


End file.
